


(A pause.)

by Eicinic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (Hints of: existentialism), Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I always find their hope for freedom the worst enemy they have to face in this war, M/M, Yet- they are a reason to keep living
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9557492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eicinic/pseuds/Eicinic
Summary: Maybe it’s as simple as this: freedom exists where Levi is.





	

He bent forward to rest his lips on his bare neck. It was very easy to drop a kiss on his seventh vertebra, the one establishing a new cardinal point to orientate through his body. Things like this were easy: nosing the river of his spina up his nape until he could kiss the undercut in the places where he knew tension piled up to give him headaches: the war taking roots on his skull. Levi was like Eren, at the end: collateral damage of something bigger than them. And maybe it was okay, because the arch of Levi’s back when he was crouched next to the flowers blooming at the feet of the ruins of the last wall talked of the outline of the world Eren built in his chest, the place where he runs to when living  _ after  _ everything weighs so much he can’t bear to look at what’s left and know he doesn’t belong here anymore. He’s not human, and he’s not a titan, because there aren’t any titans on Earth. He’s the last one, in the same way these stones are only remainings.

 

Levi likes to watch flowers bloom, but doesn’t like to garden, like these aren’t hands to grow but to murder. Still, Eren has felt them on his own face, cold, bony,  _ careful _ , when Levi can’t speak and only finds calm for the noise in his head by holding his face: a truce. He couldn’t save them but Eren promised he would be the only soldier who wouldn’t die under his command and Levi decided to  _ believe it _ . He can only do this much with these hands.

 

Then Eren is reminded of what he is: a trench. A passing place. Levi carries it with him in the same way he still battles nightmares: with desperation. They’re both soldiers fighting a war that no longer needs them, rebuilding the world that doesn’t want them. He’s like a trench but not like this castle: he’s a place where Levi shelters but not where Levi stays. He takes refuge from the bombs in the hollow of Eren’s collarbones, finds a reason to keep holding his blades up in the way he laughs, with a quiet smile first, with his body following. 

 

There are things that are okay, and there are things that aren’t. He doesn’t like to touch even if he indulges, like fighting a war hasn’t ever been as difficult as loving. He doesn’t have to, Eren knows. Levi’s eyes are of the color of the ocean, so he’s not really the only titan left alive. Including the space between their bodies, including the days Levi can’t speak or can’t uncurl out of the bed they are always in company. 

 

_ Bury me with my stomach on the ground and plant a tree on my back,  _ so it will grow with all the deaths we couldn’t avoid. He doesn’t say grow it feathers, but Eren knows that’s the only kind of tree that would feed from Levi’s flesh. He supposes it’s beautiful, in that way that implies out of the two of them, Levi’s the only one who truly will be eternal. He promised, though, and at least the captain’s trust is worth finding the left side of his bed cold and empty most mornings, the deafening silence, the thirty four steps from the shelter of the castle to the ruins of the wall, to where the flowers are; agoraphobia, Hange said, only to put a name to Levi’s madness. 

 

Eren knows better. 

 

He’s afraid of freedom. 

 

Afraid of this world that belongs to them, but they don’t belong to it. The four walls of their refuge are the difference measured in sickness: the worst days the only way Levi can breathe is back turned to the room and face pressed against Eren’s sternum, their bareness the only place he wants to stay.

 

He kisses his cold ear then, it’s next to his lips and he’s drawn to his centimeters of exposed skin.  _ I love you,  _ he murmurs aloud, to make sure Levi  _ remembers.  _ He also knows, and that’s what his eyes say when they don’t touch but are always looking at each other. Gravity exists in this world he’s found shaped in the way Levi curls forward, it pulls them in until the space between them is negative, until there’s no beginning and no ending, until the consequences of the war they’re still fighting stay outside this room, outside this castle, outside the ruins of these walls. 

 

Maybe it’s as simple as this: freedom exists where Levi is, he only needs a trench to shelter, take a break and duck out to keep fighting monsters. A soldier is always a soldier is the language of his hands when he’s cupping Eren’s face, but also when he’s staring into those eyes of garden, in the same way he likes to watch flowers bloom:  _ trusting _ it will happen. 


End file.
